As far as marketing campaigns go, the main goal of promoting your product or service should be to genuinely relate to a target market and then use that as a building block towards promoting why what you are offering is useful.

And it appears clear that HBO have identified a target market for their latest efforts in promoting the HBO Go streaming platform… teenagers. Although the HBO Go service is one that is available for free exclusively for any HBO premium cable subscriber, it appears as though they have felt the need to remind that demographic that such an option is already out there if they haven’t already seen it on their alternative viewing platforms.

Luckily, said adverts take a premise that many young viewers are probably thinking when they are caught up in similar situations.

The seven short commercials made by HBO showcase the awkward scenarios that can occur when a family watch their network together on the only TV in the house carrying the channel, using popular programming including Game of Thrones, Girls, True Blood, True Detective, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, in particular the parts containing subject matter you would rather hear on your own as a younger viewer than have parents chipping in with their opinions.

With the common tagline of being able to watch “Far, far away from your parents,” will the HBO Go commercials help to make teenager’s bedrooms an even more ‘sacred’ and restrictive location? All seven of them can be seen below:

Media company and TV content provider Viacom are noted as having the potential to reap the benefits as the means of measuring online ratings is further developed, as research from Cowen & Co. suggests the work of Nielsen and ComScore (amongst others) will draw the attention of young viewers as the new standard.

With Nielsen getting set to introduce online live streaming figures (from official streaming sources) as a part of their overall TV ratings measurement process (under pressure from major pay-tv companies for advertising purposes), it is now believed by the research firm that with the growth of online viewing now being clear and recorded as such, viewers on desktop and mobile devices will use the ratings themselves as a means to help determine what content to try.

This audience is claimed to be primarily a younger demographic, as Cowen & Co. said of the rewards that Viacom’s family of networks can claim for this in 2014: “As measurement of video-on-demand and online viewing improves, Viacom should disproportionately benefit, as we believe their young-skewing audience likely over-indexes to those viewing methods vs. other big media networks.

“The company’s domestic ratings remain stable, which we expect will continue to support midsingle-digit advertising growth in 2014. European ad trends appear to be stabilizing, which should help growth for non-U.S. networks.”

Speaking at a recent UBS conference, Viacom’s CEO Philippe Dauman said of the expectations that Viacom have in the field of mobile audiences and how they are measured to overall benefit due to the recognition and standardisation that the public will see: “I think over the next year there will be progress made by Nielsen and other parties around the world, and we will see better sampling methodology, better coverage of other devices, whether it’s the tablets or smaller mobile devices. We have a lot of our viewing of content taking place in a way that’s not satisfactorily measured. Once that measurement becomes better we’ll be able to put more of our content on these [mobile] devices.”

A recent study from Ooyala has created yet another addition to the arguments that mobile TV is well and truly on the rise, after it was revealed that viewing content via portable devices (smartphones and tablet computers), has more than doubled in the space of a year.

The figures measured around September 2013 noted that although mobile viewing has ‘levelled off’ worldwide in the third quarter through ‘seasonal factors’, the market’s overall share regarding mobile/tablet video is an increase of 74% in viewcount since January, whilst an increase of 133% was experienced between September 2012 – September 2013.

Broken-down data notes that the increase of mobile products as ‘first-screen devices’ has come hand-in-hand with the prominence of ‘premium, long-form content’ being more readily available through such devices online, as it was noted the consumers spent around 60% of their total viewing time with content described as ‘premium’ and ‘long-form’ (with a runtime of over ten minutes). Measuring the proportion mobile had on these figures, overall mobile devices accounted for 9.2% of all ‘streaming video views’ in the year-long period, with tablets representing 6.4% of all ‘online video plays’ in general.

Much of the long-play development comes through viewers watching live video online, which continues to dominate on-demand (VOD) content in such figures, as such content causes an average viewer to tune in for an average of 30 minutes, as opposed to a VOD average stay which is 11 times shorter (and only decreasing to a multiplier of nine when it came to streaming live or on-demand content through a smart TV product or game console).

Ooyala, who took measurements from the tracked viewing habits of over 100 million content viewers in 130 countries and territories, said of their findings: “Live video continues to dominate video-on-demand (VOD). In Q3, PC viewers were drawn in by live linear streaming, breaking news, sports and special events, watching live video for 30 minutes on average, which is 11 times longer than VOD. Audiences on Smart TVs, gaming consoles and set-top-boxes watched live video nine times longer than video-on-demand, for an average of 46 minutes per play.”

With Ooyala long-form online videos taking a notably enhanced presence over recent years, how far will this trend carry with the inevitable repeat study of 2014?

As part of a preview of the third edition of their annual ‘360° Gaming Report’ in the USA, Nielsen have announced some key statistics taken from the three main games consoles (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii).

As the charts in the picture demonstrate, online streaming is increasing from last year’s figures, with the average PS3 user spending 15% of their console time viewing online video content (as opposed to 9% from the 2010), while Xbox 360 (14%, up from 10% last year) and Wii (33%, 20% in 2010) users have also been streaming more content to view.

For the Xbox, this means that users are now preferring to view content online rather than through physical media such as DVD’s (with the Blu-ray-applicable PS3’s differential between the two sources closing in fast), while the Wii’s higher comparitive standing can be explained by the fact that Nintendo’s console does not support Blu-ray or DVD.

Despite the rapid growth of streaming, though, gaming (online and offline) is still naturally the primary use of a video games console, with 67% of an Xbox 360 user’s console time dedicated to the purpose for which it was originally built.

Nielsen’s official blog said of the findings: “Streaming now represents a reported 14 percent of Xbox 360 time, 15 percent of PS3 time and 33 percent of Wii time. This growth is fueled by the availability of services like Netflix, Hulu, MLB Network and ESPN3. Time spent on game consoles in general is also on the rise. Metered console usage data from the first half of 2011 shows that the three platforms combined are up 7 percent in user time versus the year prior.”

While the three consoles are generally in direct competition with each other, Nielsen also notes that all of them seem to have a distinctive trait in usage statistics, with the Xbox 360 focused the most on online gaming, the Wii with offline games, and the PS3’s higher usage of physical media. While these trends are unsurprising given the long-standing nature of each console, could current growth see online streaming soon become the dominant activity for all three ‘home entertainment devices’?

Microsoft have revealed their latest company buy-out, with online video search engine provider VideoSurf having been purchased for a fee reported to be between $70m and $100m.

However, Microsoft do not seem intent on implementing their expensive new ‘video startup platform’ across all of their services, instead opting for a near-unanimous focus on the Xbox Live gaming platform (on the Xbox 360 games console) as their target for providing content, a likely move considering the ongoing growth of games consoles as a key online viewing method.

It is likely to be pushed straight to the front of the queue when it comes to video-based updates to the console, with other future developments for the Xbox brand including a planned console dedicated to online streaming (and games based on movement sensor Xbox Kinect).

Founded in 2006, VideoSurf describe their main service as ‘back-end computer vision technology’ capable of finding content based on individual frames within the videos themselves, promising users of its website that they will: “spend less time searching and more time being entertained”.

Xbox Live director Alex Garden said of a potential VideoSurf launch in the near future: “This holiday we will launch voice search across our entertainment partners on Xbox LIVE. Over time, as we integrate VideoSurf’s technology into our system, we are excited about the potential to have content tagged in real time to increase the speed and relevance of the search results.”

Videosurf’s co-founder Lior Delgo added his verdict on the move: “Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Division is at the leading edge of connected entertainment. We are incredibly excited to be working together on our mutual passion for creating amazing consumer experiences and reinventing how consumers search, discover and enjoy content on their televisions.”

With the newest Xbox 360 Dashboard update coming on 6 December likely to see their new aquisition’s debut, will Videosurf manage to be successfully introduced to Microsoft users little over a week after coming on board, and will it offer a further integrated streaming system for a console that already boasts Kinect voice searching?